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Babylon 5 Collectible Card Game
The Babylon 5 Collectible Card Game is a discontinued collectible card game. This CCG is distinct from most others of the genre for being specifically designed to be played by more than two players. The gameplay tends to have strong political elements, appropriately for a game based on a series with such a strong element of political intrigue. The CCG was released by Precedence Entertainment. History The first edition, Premier, was released in 1997. In late 2001 Warner Brothers chose not to renew Precedence's license to produce the game and told them to destroy any material in their inventory. This brought the game to an abrupt ending and tournament prizes in the form of Babylon 5 cards could no longer be provided.http://web.archive.org/web/20010607072001/www.eternity.com/b5ccg/index.html The company went out of business in 2002. Two World Championships were sanctioned by Precedence for the Babylon 5 CCG during its brief existence. The first B5 CCG World Championship was held at Vorcon 1 in Pomona, California, October 16-18, 1998. The second and last sanctioned B5 CCG World Championship was in Aachen, Germany, October 8-10, 1999. Gameplay Each player in the game assumes control of a specific faction, represented by one of the four main races in the TV series - Human, Minbari, Centauri or Narn. Later expansions allowed people to control the League of Non-Aligned Worlds as well as separate "Home Factions" of the four main races. The Vorlons and Shadows, although not playable races in their own right, are available as supporting characters and fleets, as are Babylon 5, the Drakh and the Interstellar Alliance. The object of the game is to use various agendas, events and conflict cards to build power and influence points for your faction. Actions in the game have to be carried out by the characters that you control, for example if you only have one character in play you can only initiate one action per turn. Unless otherwise stated, Characters can only perform one action per turn. Politics and alliances between players become very important in a multiplayer game, in fact there are certain cards which require the calling of a player vote in order to pass. If one person seems to be surging ahead, the other players will often band together to prevent him from winning. The makers of the game deliberately incorporated roleplaying elements into the game to try to give the feel that the participants are telling the story of Babylon 5. Although not strictly necessary, players are encouraged to take on the persona of their Ambassador and develop an in-game narrative to explain why they are playing the cards they are. The Round Each player begins with a starting hand which includes their Ambassador and 3 other cards of the players choice, a draw deck of cards (45 or more) and 4 influence points. Each player takes it in turns to initiate conflicts and spend influence points to bring different cards in their hand into play, then uses those cards to try to either build up more influence for themselves or prevent other players from building up influence. When everyone has done everything they want to do, any conflicts in play are resolved, points are allocated and players have the opportunity to play Aftermath cards. Finally, all players draw a card from their draw deck and take it into their hand. Play continues in this manner until one player either reaches 20 power/influence points or fulfills a specific game-winning criteria. Card Sets ; Premier ; The Shadows ; Deluxe : A re-issue of the Premier series with errata and other minor updates ; The Great War ; Psi Corps ; Severed Dreams ; Wheel of Fire ; Crusade ; Anla'Shok : A never-released expansion which was being planned at the time WB pulled the licencing rights from Precedence ; The Collector's Set : A never-released set of 12 special foil cards. References External links * The Babylon 5 Collectible Card Game (TM) - History * CCG Workshop - No longer active * Vassal - Online game play * LackeyCCG - Online game play * Vorlon Space - Fan site, card database, trading zone. * Precedence's discontinuation statement - Statement on the old Precedence site about the disconinuation of Babylon 5 CCG Category:Real World Topics